Page 98 of Sands of Atonement

It took everything I had to pull my legs up to stand. The sand below me was drenched in blood. I hadn’t realized how deep the wound had gotten.

My head felt like it couldn’t sit on my shoulders straight, but I felt Eshe’s body hold mine closer as I walked one foot in front of the other.

The moon was well over us by the time we made it back to the tent, my body almost crushing Eshe. Her scent began bringing me to a more conscious state of mind.

“Let me see it,” she said as she reached for some cloths in the saddlebag.

I barked out a laugh, lingering in pain as I said, “Not a chance,” and pushed her to the side, but caught myself from falling again. My fingers fumbled for some extra linens in my bag, adrenaline and painkiller tinctures, and I trudged inside the tent with Eshe tailing me, picking up the linens that fell from my arms.

“Why? Do you not trust me?”

“Nope.” I managed to open the flaps to the tent with the side that wasn’t in pain and entered. Liquid medicine dripped from my mouth as I took a large gulp of both tinctures and felt the immediate effects trickling through my bloodstream. Useful for situations like this when pain was something that was a nuisance and had to keep going.

Eshe’s jaw twitched. “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have helped you in this tent. I was doing you a favor.”

“Not quite, sweetheart. You would have been killed too.” I slid my eyes over to her for a moment. “You helped yourself.”

“Mmm, I don’t think you got that right. I could have easily said you stole me—which you did,” she enunciated.

“You’re saying you helped me from the goodness of your heart?” I laughed mockingly and breathlessly, the words a joke in themselves as I tilted my skin bottle to the linen, drenching it.

I could feel the air become tight and electric.

“I didn’t want you hurt. So, if that means I was trying to help you out of the goodness of my heart, then go ahead and laugh at me all you want. I don’t care. Plus, I found you, didn’t I?”

My hand stopped the tilt of the bottle. I whipped my head to her. “You don’t want me hurt? Since when? You tried to kill me not that long ago, do I need to remind you?”

I searched her eyes.

Eshe fluttered hers away from mine and snatched the cloth from my hand. “I thought you killed my family.”

I had a headache from the blood that drained from me. “And now?”

“Now, I don’t,” she said with certainty as she met my eyes again. “Just sit down, will you?”

I fell down on the tarp with a grunt and slid the robe off my sticky shoulders.

I leaned back on my elbows as Eshe kneeled by my side, lifting the wet towel to my side.

My abdominals clenched upon contact, and so did my teeth.

Fuuuuck.

Stars filled my vision, and I blinked them away.

The gash was deep—nothing I wasn’t used to, but still. Annoying as fuck. I barely made it back to the tent when Eshe found me. Gabriel was a skilled fighter, something I didn’t encounter besides Atrovians.

“Looking at it will just make this worse,” Eshe warned while she brushed the excess blood off my skin. I hissed, closing my eyes, as she pressed a bit deeper, probably attempting to get all the debris from the sand out of the wound, but I imagined she did it on purpose.

Turning my head, I gazed toward the flap of the tents, remembering just earlier how she was wrapped in my arms. I gritted my teeth so hard, I was surprised my teeth didn’t crack right then and there. The moment before they arrived, Eshe had snuggled deeper into me, and I felt her pulse race. So did mine. I leaned in further and felt it flutter on my lips when I pressed them on her neck, grazing them higher behind her ear. Without my consent, my hands spread between her warm breasts, reaching, wanting more. She was warm and soft in my arms, if the men hadn’t arrived… The thoughts in my head were not pure, and I hoped I wouldn’t have them again. I wasn’t sure I could control myself if temptation kept pressing on my mind.

“What?” Eshe asked.

I realized I had drifted and been staring at Eshe.

“We should continue riding out,” I grunted, pulling myself up. She had finished cleaning a while ago and was sitting nearby. It’d been an hour or so—the drugs had taken effect. The cloth on me was no longer bleeding through.

“But we barely got to sleep,” Eshe argued with a frown. “And you’re hurt.”